Dried honey enriched with volatile honey compounds

ABSTRACT

A process for releasing a volatile honey components form a liquid honey is described wherein water is added to honey, extracting the volatile component and optionally adding the honey component to dried honey. The volatile honey product obtained by the process can be used in food and pharmaceutical products. 
     The invention relates to a process for treating honey comprising the steps of adding water to the liquid honey; releasing a volatile honey component from the liquid honey by evaporation to product a residual partially dried honey; and collecting the volatile honey component, the volatile honey component may be then added to dried honey solids to improve the flavor and aroma or the volatile honey component can be added to food or medicaments. The prior art, teaches making a dried honey solids adding water to honey and then freeze drying, however in this process the volatile components are lost and the prior art teaches a process for producing solid honey wherein pure honey is subjected to dehydration in a vacuum evaporator, there is no suggestion in the prior art to add water to liquid honey and then distill the honey to release the volatiles from the distillation or evaporator which is collected and then added directly to foods or medicaments or added back to a dried honey.

This application is a 371 of PCT/CA01/00033, filed Jan. 12, 2001.

FIELD OF THE INVENTION

The invention is in the field of food products and food processing, andmore particularly dried honey products and processing techniques.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Preparation of dried honey results in loss of volatile flavours andaroma, which may make the dried product less palatable than liquidhoney. There are a number of patents which describe preparation of driedhoney products, including solid honey (U.S. Pat. No. 5,356,650), driedhoney blended with soy protein, dried milk and sugar (U.S. Pat. No.3,780,185), dried honey in tablet form (U.S. Pat. No. 3,879,567) andcrystallised honey (U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,035, using lyophilization). Forexample, U.S. Pat. No. 4,529,608 (Szejtli et al., 1985), describes amethod for decreasing the loss of aroma in dried honey, by mixing honeywith a cyclodextrin before freezing and lyophilization. In analternative approach, U.S. Pat. No. 4,885,035 (Slifkin, 1986), describesa lyophilization method for drying and crystallizing honey, that is saidto reduce the loss of original flavour and fragrance in the dried honey.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

In one aspect, the invention provides processes for treating honey,comprising the steps of releasing a volatile honey component from aliquid honey by evaporation, such as by vacuum evaporation, to produce aresidual partially dried honey; and collecting the volatile honeycomponent. The process may comprise a step of adding water to the liquidhoney before the step of releasing the volatile honey component from theliquid honey. The process may further comprise the step of adding thevolatile honey component to a dried honey to obtain a reconstitutedhoney, and the dried honey may be prepared from the residual partiallydried honey left-over after the release of the volatile honey component.The reconstituted honey may be agglomerated. Alternatively, the volatilehoney component may be added to a food product to obtain a treated foodproduct.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is a flow diagram of a process of the invention for preparingdried honey granules.

FIG. 2 is a schematic showing one embodiment of the process of theinvention, illustrating the changing degree of hydration of the honeyproducts during the process. It will be noted that the reconstitutedhoney in this embodiment has degree of hydration that is less than thehydration of the original honey, which may facilitate the further dryingof the reconstituted honey to produce the desiccated honey withoutsubstantial loss of the volatile honey component.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

In one aspect, the invention provides methods for extracting componentsfrom liquid honey. In a further aspect, the invention provides methodsfor reincorporating such components into a dried honey product. Theinvention also provides a dried honey product obtainable from using suchprocesses, and honey components obtained from using such processes.

In one aspect, the invention provides a process for treating honey,comprising the steps of: (a) blending water with a liquid honey; (b)releasing a honey component from said liquid honey by evaporation; and(c) collecting said component.

In another aspect the invention provides a process for treating honey,comprising the steps of: (a) blending water with a liquid honey; (b)releasing a honey component from said liquid honey by evaporation; (c)collecting said component; and (d) adding said component to a driedhoney. In another aspect the invention provides an additional step (e)of agglomerating the honey component and the dried honey so that thehoney components are incorporated into the resulting dried honeygranules.

In some embodiments, commercial liquid honey may be used in theprocesses of the invention, from which to extract the honey components,and for preparing dried honey. The moisture content of commercial honeytypically ranges from about 13% to about 26%. In the processes of theinvention, the starting liquid honey product may be standardized tofixed starting moisture content, or alternatively the initial moisturecontent can be taken into consideration before the addition of water ina blending step. There is also a variation in the flavour and aromacontents of honey. Liquid honey may be chosen for specific types ofhoney components based on what final aroma and flavours are desired inthe end dried honey product. In some embodiments, it may be preferableto use liquid honey with a moisture content ranging from 13% to 26%,alternative ranges are 15% to 20% and 16% to 18%. A higher or lowermoisture level may be used, adapting the process if necessary to accountfor the fact that honey may be degraded by microorganisms whichtypically grow in honey at moisture levels above 20%.

In some embodiments, liquid honey may be blended with water beforereleasing selected components from the honey. Blenders, mixers oragitators may for example be used for blending the honey with water. Theamount of water to be added may be adjusted depending on the moisturecontent of the liquid honey. It may be preferred in some embodiments toblend honey with water to obtain a hydrated honey having a moisturecontent in the range of 20% to 30% by weight, 23% to 27%, or 25% byweight. For example, liquid honey with a moisture content of 18% may beblended with water to about 25% honey by weight. In some embodiments,insufficient hydration may remove too little of the honey flavour whiletoo much hydration may result in the collection of a volatile honeycomponent with only a dilute honey flavour. The optimal amount of waterto add may also vary with the type of honey, and the flavour compoundspresent in the honey, which may vary with the primary crop source (e.g.clover honey, canola honey). In some embodiments, added water may assistin extracting volatile flavour components from the honey matrix, so thatthe volatile honey flavour components are more volatile and may beevaporated.

Volatile honey components may be extracted from liquid honey andcollected by evaporation using techniques such as distillation, flashevaporation, thin film evaporation, short path distillation, and vacuumevaporation. In some embodiments, liquid honey, in diluted or undilutedform, may be placed in a low temperature, vacuum evaporator forevaporation of volatile honey components. The use of low temperature mayhelp to avoid undesired reactions between components of the honey. Insome embodiments, evaporation may be carried out under relatively highvacuum and low temperature conditions. For example, evaporation of thevolatile honey components may be carried out at 30° C. to 80° C., or ata temperature of 35° C. to 50° C., under a vacuum level of 25 to 28inches of mercury. To minimize reaction of the volatile components, itmay be preferable that the components are collected within a relativelyshort period of time. In some embodiments this may for example be about120, 69 or 60 minutes or less. The extent of removal of volatiles mayvary, from removal of more than 95% of the volatile component to lessthan 50%, with alternative embodiments being (by percentage of totalvolatiles that would be extractable under given conditions, i.e. theavailable volatiles) more than 99%, more than 95%, more than 90%, 90-99,50-90, 75-90, or alternative within these ranges. The extent of volatileremoval may be measured semi-quantitatively by gas chromatography,measuring the area under peaks present in the volatile honey components,or by counting the peaks to qualitatively assess the extent of volatilecomponent removal. IN alternative embodiments, volatile components maybe collected by a flash evaporation where evaporation is relativelyrapid. In some embodiments, the volatile components may have vaporiztiontemperatures ranging from 35° to 90° C., and in some embodiments thedensity of the condensate may be between 0.9 and 1.1 g/ml, or about 1g/ml, although values outside this range are also contemplated.

The evaporated volatile honey components may be condensed and collectedleaving a residual honey concentrate. The residual honey concentrate maybe dried further, after evaporation of the volatile honey components.Further drying, after vacuum evaporation of the volatile honeycomponents, may for example be carried out by drum/roller, spray dryingor microwave vacuum/freeze drying. In some embodiments the honeyconcentrate may be spray dried at a spray dryer inlet air temperature of120° C. to 200° C., a spray dryer outlet air temperature of 70 to 120°C., and a feed to the spray dryer of 30 to 35% (w/w) solids content. Awide range of spray drying parameters may be used, depending on thedesign of the particular dryer. The residual honey concentrate may haveadded to it various additives such as sweeteners, processing aids,drying aids, bulking agents and anticaking agents. The residual honeyconcentrate may for example be mixed with water, maltodextrin, andsilicon dioxide before being spray dried. Such a process may be used toproduce a residual honey concentrate having a moisture content lowerthan the moisture content of the original honey. The step of evaporatingthe volatile honey components may for example be carried out on ahydrated honey having a moisture content greater than the moisturecontent of the original honey (e.g. of about 25%) to produce a residualpartially dried honey having a moisture content similar to the originalhoney (e.g. of about 18%). Powdered maltodextrin and water may then beadded before father drying to produce a residual partially dried honeyhaving a moisture content less than the original honey (e.g. of about12%).

The volatile honey components of the invention may be incorporated intoa dried honey. The dried honey may be a residual partially dried honeyfrom which the volatile honey components have been extracted inaccordance with the methods of the invention, or dried honey that hasbeen prepared by other processes (such as commercially available honeypowders, flakes, granules or crystals). The volatile honey component maybe mixed with the dried honey and the resulting mixture agglomerated.For example, the residual partially dried honey powder may be mixed withthe volatile honey component condensate and placed on a fluidized beddryer to agglomerate the mixture. In some embodiments the honeycomponent condensate may be sprayed into the fluidized bed of the driedhoney at a fluidized bed air temperature of between about 30° C. to 60°C. The airflow in the dryer may vary with the design of the dryer andquantity of dried honey being agglomerated. One skilled in the operationof the fluidized bed dryer may adjust the airflow to achieve effectivefluidization. In some embodiments, the volatile honey component (aflavoured condensate) may be introduced at a rate which maintains amoisture level of 5% to 15% or 8% to 12% (w/w) moisture in the driedhoney. As the volatile honey component condensate wets the dried honeyparticles, they may become sticky and agglomerate when they contactother moist honey particles, to obtain a reconstituted honey. In someembodiments, the reconstituted honey may be further agglomerated, forexample using non-flavoured water, once all the honey componentcondensate has been added, to achieve a larger particle size.Alternatively, water may be used to first agglomerate the residualpartially dried honey before the addition of the volatile honeycomponent condensate to complete the agglomeration and to add flavour tothe dried honey.

The process of the present invention may be adapted to produce driedhoney granules incorporating volatile honey components. For example,after the condensed volatile honey component has been added to theresidual partially dried honey, the reconstituted honey may be furtherdried, for example in a fluidized bed dryer to a moisture level of lessthan 10%, less than 5% or less than 3%, to produce a desiccated honey.It will be noted that the reconstituted honey may have a moisturecontent, such as 8-12%, which is less than the moisture content of theoriginal (untreated) honey (typically between 15-20%) and it has beenfound that the step of drying the reconstituted honey may be adapted sothat it does not remove all of the volatile honey component (this may bebecause the removal of the volatile honey component may depend on anadequate moisture content—as discussed above), so that the volatilehoney component remains substantially in the desiccated honey. Thedesiccated honey may for example have more than 50%, more that 75% ormore than 90% of the volatile honey component that was present in thereconstituted honey. In some embodiments, the reconstituted honey ofvarying moisture content of the present invention may have a honeyflavour and aroma that is closer to the original honey than the flavourand aroma of dried honey produced simply by desiccation of the originalhoney.

In quantitative and qualitative assessments, it has been found that thevolatile fraction of untreated honey may have 10 peaks on a gaschromatograph (GC), the volatile honey component of the presentinvention may have 6 GC peaks and the desiccated honey of the inventionmay have 4 peaks. Whereas a desiccated honey produced simply by drying ahoney may have only 2 peaks. In addition, the 4 peaks of the GC of thedesiccated honey of the invention may have a larger area than the 2peaks of the ‘control’ desiccated honey produced simply by drying honey.These results indicate that the present invention may be utilized toprovide a desiccated honey comprising volatile components (which may addflavour and aroma) that are not present if honey is simply dried.

The reconstituted or desiccated honey of the invention may be screenedand packaged in accordance with standard methods. In alternativeembodiments, reconstituted honey to which volatile honey components havebeen added may be added to or coated on other food products. Thevolatile honey components of the invention may also be added to foodsand medicaments to improve palatability.

Although various embodiments of the invention are disclosed herein, manyadaptations and modifications may be made within the scope of theinvention in accordance with the common general knowledge of thoseskilled in this art. Such modifications include the substitution ofknown equivalents for any aspect of the invention in order to achievethe same result in substantially the same way. Numeric ranges areinclusive of the numbers defining the range. In the claims, the word“comprising” is used as an open-ended term, substantially equivalent tothe phrase “including, but not limited to”.

1. A process for treating honey, comprising the steps of: (a) addingwater to the liquid honey; (b) releasing a volatile honey component fromthe liquid honey by evaporation, to produce a residual partially driedhoney; (c) collecting the volatile honey component; and (d) adding thevolatile hone component to a dried honey to obtain a reconstitutedhoney.
 2. The process of claim 1 wherein said water is added to thehoney to achieve a moisture content of about 20-30% by weight.
 3. Theprocess of claim 1 wherein the step of releasing the volatile honeycomponent from the liquid honey is carried out by an evaporation methodselected from the group consisting of vacuum evaporation, distillation,flash evaporation, thin film evaporation, and short path distillation.4. The process of claim 3 wherein the step of releasing the volatilehoney component from the liquid honey is carried out by vacuumevaporation at a temperature of between about 30° C. to 80° C. and avacuum level of between about 25 to 28 inches of mercury.
 5. The processof claim 4 wherein said temperature is between about 35° C. to 50° C. 6.The process of claim 4 wherein said vacuum level is 28 inches ofmercury.
 7. The process according to claim 4 wherein vacuum evaporationis carried out to remove 50-99% of available volatiles.
 8. The processof claims 1 wherein the dried honey is, or is prepared from, theresidual partially dried honey.
 9. The process of claim 1, wherein thevolatile honey component is added to the dried honey in a fluidized beddryer at an air temperature between about 30° C. to 60° C. at a ratesufficient to maintain a moisture level of about 8 to 12% (w/w) in thedried honey.
 10. The process according to claim 1, further comprisingthe step of agglomerating the reconstituted honey.
 11. The process of ofclaim 1 further comprising the step of adding the volatile honeycomponent to a dried honey that has been agglomerated to a desiredparticle size, to obtain a reconstituted honey.
 12. The process of claim10 wherein the dried honey is, or is prepared from, the residualpartially dried honey.
 13. The process of claim 11 further comprisingthe step of drying the reconstituted honey to obtain a dried honeygranules.
 14. The process of claim 12 wherein the reconstituted honey isdried to a moisture level of less than about 3 %.
 15. A process forpreparing dry honey comprising the steps of: (a) adding water to aliquid honey to a moisture content of about 25 %; (b) extracting avolatile honey component from the liquid honey by vacuum evaporation ata temperature of between about 30° C. to 80 ° C. and a vacuum level ofbetween 25 to 28 inches of mercury for about 60 minutes. (c) adding thevolatile honey component to a dried honey in a fluidized bed dryer at anair temperature of between about 30° C. to 60° C. at a rate sufficientto maintain a moisture level of about 8 to 12% (ww/) in the dried honeyto obtain a reconstituted honey.
 16. The process of claim 14 furthercomprising agglomerating the reconstituted honey.
 17. The process ofclaim 14 further comprising drying the reconstituted honey to a moisturelevel of less than about 3%.
 18. The process of claim 14 furthercomprising drying the reconstituted honey to a moisture level of lessthan about 3%.
 19. A process for treating a food product, comprising thesteps of: (a) adding water to a liquid honey, wherein the liquid honeyhas a first moisture content, to produce a hydrated honey having asecond moisture content greater than the first moisture content; (b)extracting a volatile honey component from the hydrated honey byevaporation to collect the volatile honey component from the hydratedhoney by evaporation to collect the volatile honey component and toleave a residual partially dried honey concentrate that has a thirdmoisture content that is less than the secoind moisture content; (c)adding the volatile honey component to the dried honey conentrate toproduce a reconstituted honey having a moisture content less than thefirst moisture content; and, (d) drying the reconstituted honey toobtain a desicated honey so that at least one component of the volatilehoney component remains substantially in the desiccated honey.